Monday, August 27, 2012

The conference took place between the 14th and
the 24th of January, 1943.

Winston Churchill proposed it.

The location selected was the Anfa Hotel in the Moroccan
city of Casablanca.

Stalin was invited to come, but refused, claiming he had his
hands full with Stalingrad.

Both Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud were there, each of
them claiming to speak for the Free French. The two Frenchmen hated each other, and although President Franklin
D. Roosevelt convinced them to shake hands for the cameras, their mutual
dislike still comes through in the photographs.

As for Roosevelt himself, he got there with the help of the
Brazilians.

And a spectacular piece of aeronautical machinery, the Boeing
314, the longest-range aircraft of its time.

Roosevelt was no stranger to Brazil. He’d been the first serving
American President to visit the country when he came to address the Brazilian
congress in Rio de Janeiro in November of 1936. That led to an alliance in
which the United States was permitted to establish a base for the 314s in the
closest place on this side of the Atlantic to the African landmass. It was
christened Parnamirim Field, became vital in the effort to supply allied troops
during the invasion of North Africa and grew, for a short time, to be the
busiest airport in the world, with flights taking off and landing every three
minutes.

It also became the largest US airbase outside of American
territory.

During the war as many as 5,000 troops were stationed there –
and another 42,000 passed through – making a considerable impact on a little
town that had numbered only 55,000 inhabitants before the war began.

Here are a few American military guys drinking at the Grand
Hotel.

The hotel is gone, but the church you saw in the background of
the shot is still there.

During the war, as in all wars, there were many love stories.

Inspiring the poet Mauro Mota to write this:

“Meninas, tristes
meninas,

vossos dramas recordai,

quando eles no armistício,

Vos disseram “Goodbye”.

Ouvireis a vida toda

A ressonancia do choro

Dos vossos filhos sem
pai”.

Despite the impression you might have gotten from Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, whose Sonnets From
The Portuguese aren’t from the Portuguese at all, most of this country’s
poems aren’t easy to translate into English. The art of it goes beyond my
meager powers, particularly in rhyme.

But here’s the meaning (with a few liberties):

Women, sad young
women,

Think back on your desolation

When, at the war’s end,

They told you “Goodbye”.

The cries of your children

Without fathers

Will echo within you

Your whole life long.

Roosevelt’s outward-bound journey was the first time an American
president ever traveled by air while in office. On the twelfth of January,
1943, he departed from Miami and made an overnight stop in Belem.

Upon his return, his Clipper landed in the sea, near
Parnamirim, and Brazil’s President, Gitulio Vargas, journeyed north to meet him.

They toured the town in a jeep.

On his journey home, on the 30th of January,
1943, the aircraft’s crew surprised him with a cake.

It was the President’s sixty-first birthday.

Okay, okay, in case you feel the title of the post has lured
you here under false pretenses, here are a few things you might not have known
about the film.

It went into general release on the 24th of
January, just as the conference was coming to an end. That was on purpose, an
attempt to capitalize on the headlines. It wasn't exactly a failure, but it wasn't a smash success either. It became only the seventh best-grossing feature
of the year. The Office of War Information prohibited showing it to the troops
in North Africa, fearing it might generate resentment on the part of Vichy
supporters in the region.

But, partly as a result of publicity generated by Roosevelt’s
visit, it did very well in Brazil.

South American history is so ignored. But so is African and Asian. Even when, as in this fascinating case, it intimately interconnects with European and North American History. We are insular and parochial, regardless of how open and global we pretend we are.